Speaking ahead of World TB Day, the province's health MEC Sibongiseni Dhlomo stated that South Africa would be a better country in terms of people’s health if KwaZulu-Natal were to be removed from the equation.

The department of health has observed a huge rise in the number of cases of TB in recent months as more than 1.2million people were tested for TB and about 70% of TB patients in the province were HIV positive.

World TB Day is being observed to increase public awareness about the disease which results in the deaths of millions of people worldwide.

Dhlomo said, “EThekwini is the epicenter of the TB pandemic and King George Hospital manages 50% of the multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases in the province. What is sad is that children are increasingly suffering from TB because they get it from their parents, relatives and/or where they live”.

In addition, he explained that the nation was ranked third in the world with TB burden and it was one the 22 high-burden countries that contributed approximately 80% of the total global burden of all TB cases.

The national Health Minister Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi is supposed to launch new technology today which would help to reduce the detection time from three weeks to two hours.